


your iron rule has often had me on my knees

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: their smiles shaped wrong [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Charge, Power Rangers Time Force
Genre: AUs lead to rarepairs, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Asexual Character, Dark, District 9 (Hunger Games), Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Multi, Nadira as Caesar Flickerman is an inspired choice, Nothing graphic don't worry, Polyamory, Riley is a Victor of the Hunger Games, Wes and Jen won much earlier Games, and function as mentors, and power rangers has always led me to multishipping, i feel so sorry for poor Riley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2020-07-12 16:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19949200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Jen looks him right in the eye. “Let me give you a bit of advice, Riley,” she says, and her voice isn’t stuck-up or smug. There’s something almost plaintive in her voice, as if she sincerely cares if he listens to her. “You don’t want to be pretty. Better to fade away, here in the Capitol.”Riley isn’t an idiot. He knows that the Careers- most of them pretty, all of them memorable as they can be- get better Sponsorships in the Games, and he suspects that the same rules apply to Mentors behind the scenes of the Games too. Riley knows that he’s going to have to be a Mentor soon. Shouldn’t he try to get every advantage he can? Shouldn’t he try to be memorable, to get as many Sponsorships as possible to help save as many Nine tributes as possible? “Why fade away?” Riley asks, “If it can benefit your tributes in the Games?”Jen’s eyes widen just a little in appraisal, as if she’s just reevaluated something in her assessment of him, but she still answers: “Only the pretty ones become whores,” Jen says, “Be thankful you’re not pretty.”-A week later, when Riley’s being fucked by his first Capitolite and very pointedly not thinking about Ivan and Shelby back home, he can’t help but wish that Jen was right.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Axe to Grind" by Bastille.
> 
> Alright, kids, buckle in. Some shit's gonna go down and things get pretty dark but we're rolling in Panem now and that should really be expected by now.
> 
> Also, my brain's tendency to turn any Dino Charge fic into a multichap should be obvious right now. Not even gonna apologize.

_These are not battle scars. These are not proof of survival. My riddled body is not so poetic. The fact that they exist proves I was very sad and very sick. The fact that they are scar tissued proves I am progressing. This was never supposed to be poetry. There is no romance in pain._

**-Michelle K.**

As Riley goes through his Victory Interview, he can’t help but let his thoughts drift off to his girlfriend and boyfriend back home, instead of Nadira Flickerman’s face. Shelby, brilliant and ferocious and probably too brave for her own good, and Ivan, dedicated and honorable and hard-working. Shelby’s the daughter of a Merchant- the baker’s daughter- and Ivan is a field worker. They’ve been together for about a year now.

(Riley doesn’t know if either of them would have won the Hunger Games if they’d been Reaped. He can barely believe that he himself won, that he survived to hear the announcement of his Victory. He can barely believe the fact that he’d used a scythe- and later, a sword- to slice through the backs and necks of four tributes after crafting tricky traps to trip them up and make them easier to get to.)

They’d both been there in the Justice Building in that last hour, alongside Riley’s mother and brother Matt. All four of them had wished him luck, told him that they loved him. Riley’s mother had handed him her wedding ring, tied around a piece of string that usually hung around her neck, as his token. Matt had reminded Riley about the importance of survival skills in the Games. Ivan had hugged him and told him that “You’re going to win, you’re brilliant, I know.” Shelby had pulled him in, kissed his lips, and said, “Fuck them all. You have to come back, and I know you can.”

(And Riley had known, that whether he had the skills to do so or not, that he _had_ to win. Because he couldn’t die like Shelby’s first boyfriend, Tyler, had, when he was Reaped two years ago.)

And so he had, getting all that blood on his hands that he knows that Ivan and Shelby won’t care about. After all, he survived and he’s coming home to them, and that’s what matters.

So Riley smiles at Nadira Flickerman, just picturing the fields back home and what it will be like to be able to give Shelby and Ivan a home for the three of them (and Mother and Matt, of course), what it will be like to be able to hold his girlfriend and boyfriend and kiss them and take care of them. None of them will ever have to worry about starvation again, and they’ll be happy and in love and _alive_.

Riley’s gaze flicks up to Nadira’s signature pink hair, coiffed for the Games, as she asks Riley if he’s happy. Riley answers honestly when he says: “Of course. I get to go home to those I love, now.”

Nadira practically squeals her happiness for him.

-

The stylists dress Riley in green for the President’s Ball. It’s a welcome change from all of the grain-themed outfits, he’s gotta admit.

(Riley can just imagine Shelby and Ivan here with him, dressed up in Capitol clothing, rather than the faded brown they tend to wear in Nine. Ivan would wear gold and white well, while Shelby would look beautiful in black or red or even pink. They would be as beautiful in Capitol clothing as they are in Nine, but they would be able to shine here in a way that field work in Nine never let them.)

He and Kendrix, his boss Kendall’s older sister and the Victor of the Fifty Sixth Games (and now his Mentor), make their way through the crowds, her introducing him to his Sponsors and other important Capitolites. It’s mind-numbing though not difficult work for a couple of hours that only breaks when Kendrix finally pulls them away and over to the side of the room.

“If you don’t mind, Riley,” Kendrix says, “I’ve got to use the ladies’ room. Will you be good here by yourself for a few minutes?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Riley says, never one to be impolite, and Kendrix gives him a thankful smile before heading off for the restroom.

Then, past some of the Capitolites in the room, Riley spots-

Holy fuck. That’s Jennifer Scotts, a tribute from One who won the Fifty Second Hunger Games and then brought herself a Victor on her first time in the Mentor seat, just three years later. Right now she’s dressed in a dark pink gown with her dark curls pulled up into an intricate updo, and _she’s making her way towards him._

“Call me Jen,” Jennifer says, sticking out a hand for Riley to shake, and he can’t help but notice her dark eyes and the way they drag over him, examining him like she’s searching the Arena. He’s watched reruns of her Games- particularly violent as they were, the Gamemakers like to replay them in the weeks leading up to each year’s games.

“Riley Griffin,” Riley introduces himself, though it’s probably unnecessary as he _is_ the newest Victor in the Games.

Jen lets out a small laugh. “Oh, I know,” she says, a small amount of humor to her voice. Then, as she’s finishing looking him over, she smirks. “Oh, the Capitol should overlook you, easy.”

Riley raises an eyebrow. “What, ma’am?” he asks, because Kendrix drilled politeness into him in the couple of weeks leading up to the Reaping.

Jen looks him right in the eye. “Let me give you a bit of advice, Riley,” she says, and her voice isn’t stuck-up or smug. There’s something almost plaintive in her voice, as if she sincerely cares if he listens to her. “You don’t want to be pretty. Better to fade away, here in the Capitol.”

Riley isn’t an idiot. He knows that the Careers- most of them pretty, all of them memorable as they can be- get better Sponsorships in the Games, and he suspects that the same rules apply to Mentors behind the scenes of the Games as well. Riley knows that he’s going to have to be a Mentor next year and in the years to come. Shouldn’t he try to get every advantage he can? Shouldn’t he try to be memorable, to get as many Sponsorships as possible to help save as many Nine tributes as possible? “Why fade away?” Riley asks, “If it can benefit your tributes in the Games?”

Jen’s eyes widen just a little in appraisal, as if she’s just reevaluated something in her assessment of him, but she still answers: “Only the pretty ones become whores,” Jen says, “Be thankful you’re not pretty.”

Riley opens his mouth to respond, but then his mind catches on that word- _whore_. From her tone, it almost sounds like she knows it from experience. How can a Victor become a whore? They’re near-celebrities, celebrated by the Capitol if not the Districts. The Capitol wouldn’t do that to those that it considers celebrities, right…?

Or would they exactly _because_ they’re celebrities? District Nine doesn’t have any of those, but Riley _has_ heard the occasional inappropriate comment in the field barracks about the more popular girls or about the mayor’s daughter or even Kendrix, nearly twenty years older than them, the closest things that Nine _has_ to celebrities. There seems to be something somehow enticing about famous people. So maybe Jen’s statement makes a bit more sense than he’d originally thought.

Riley swallows and takes comfort in Jen’s last statement- that at least he’s not pretty. No one would want to fuck _him,_ after all- he doesn’t even want to have sex with anyone, at all, and he very much doubts if anyone would want to have sex with him.

It’s at this moment that Kendrix shows up back by Riley’s side, a questioning smile on her face. “Jen!” she says in a clearly pleased tone, “It’s nice to see you again! Are you treating my tribute right?”

“We’ve been having quite the enlightening conversation,” Riley says, looking Jen straight in the eye. “She’s told me a lot.”

“Your tribute has a bright future back in Nine,” Jen says, and Riley can read it for what it is- a prediction that Riley will get to go straight back to Nine after this, without having to deal with the prostitution that she’s talked about.

So he gives Jen a sincere smile, despite the unsettling information she’s just shared with him. He won’t have to go through what she did. He can just go home after the Victor’s parties are over with.

-

A week later, when Riley’s being fucked by his first Capitolite and very pointedly _not thinking_ about Ivan and Shelby back home, he can’t help but wish that Jen was right, that he wasn’t pretty. That the Remake hadn’t cleared him of all of his scars from the Arena. That he’d lost a limb or an eye or something that would have left him undesirable for Capitolites but that Ivan and Shelby would have overlooked.

There had to have been some way out of this. To be ugly, to be broken, to be dead-

But no. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave his mother and brother with nothing but a coffin to bury, leave Shelby with yet another dead boyfriend, make Ivan, already an orphan, alone yet again. 

Killing those kids in that Arena was something he had to do, even if this is the result. Even if he has to let hundreds of Capitolites fuck him, no matter how naseous it makes him. Because Riley _has_ to go home, for Mom and Matt and Shelby and Ivan, has to let these Capitolites fuck him so that he’s alive and his family stays alive as well.

So Riley bites his tongue and soldiers through and _survives_ this bed, just like he survived the Arena.

-

After Riley’s first client, he finds himself in the bathroom of the apartment he’s staying in, puking into the porcelain toilet that’s far fancier than any of the shitters back in Nine. The resolve that got him through his first client is nowhere near enough to stop the nausea and revulsion and pain of what just happened.

He is alone in what is happening. It may be the thought of home that gets him through, but for now, it’s just this pristine Capitol apartment that isn’t _his_ and will never be, no matter what Kendrix said when she showed him it right after his interview. It will _never_ be home, not like the barracks that he and his mother and Matt lived in back in Nine, not like the Victor’s Village house will be with his family, Shelby, and Ivan living there when he gets back.

“I’m sorry,” he hears a soft whisper, and then he feels a hand on the back of his flushed neck, gentle and cool against his skin. Riley looks up to find Wes Collins, Victor of the Fifty Fifth Games, standing behind him. Jen Scotts is leaning against the door, a look of concern on her face.

“Let it all out,” Wes gently cajoles Riley, “You’ll feel better afterward,” and Riley’s throat convulses again. He turns his head back around and lets the bile flow free until every chunk and drop is gone from his throat.

All Riley wanted was to go home to the Victor’s Village and give Ivan and Shelby rooms in his house, to spend his life letting their love override his blood-stained nightmares of the Arena. He’s dreamed about taking Ivan to shopping for the clothes he’s always ogled on the mandatory broadcasts or to the sports games he’s always been interested in, or taking Shelby to all of the science displays and fairs they have in the Capitol. All he’s ever wanted is for them to be happy, to give them the life they deserve. (The life that _Riley_ deserves.)

This- this isn’t what he wanted. This isn’t what he expected.

Riley- he’s never wanted to have sex. Not even with Ivan and Shelby, who he loves with everything he has. This, being a whore, having sex with strangers with bejeweled eyelids and horns and dyed skin- he’s never dreamed about this.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Jen says softly, and her voice sounds sincere.

Riley looks up at both of them, unsure what to say. There’s a steady ache flaring in his back and lower regions from what he just went through that he can’t ignore, and despite the fact that all of his dinner is now in the toilet in front of him, there’s still nausea roiling in his gut.

(In a way, he thinks he might have preferred the starvation back at home to the spread of food in the Capitol, because nausea back home was only a result of illness and not, well, _this_.)

“I’m sorry, too,” he says, thinking about Ivan and Shelby and the idea that he’s going to have to explain this to them. Explain the fact that he’s had to become a whore. Explain the fact that he never wanted to have sex with anyone, that he’s having to take drugs to make this work, that he’s-

He nearly dry heaves as his mind keeps circling back to what he just did, once again. His body is no longer his own, instead made into something ugly and broken by the Capitol. He is damaged and dirty and-

Riley needs to stop puking, he knows that, and he needs to get his head on straight to do so. So instead of focusing on the nauseating thoughts, Riley tries to think practically about this, just as he’s always done.

There’s no one to Mentor Riley through _this_ part of the Victor job. Kendrix never had to do this- her tech talents shown in the Arena were indispensable to the President afterwards- and Nine’s last Victor before her is long dead.

Riley’s going to have to seek advice from older Victors from other Districts who have gone through this, like Jen and apparently, maybe, Wes.

Wait a hot second. Wes and Jen? He’s seen them together at a decent number of parties together since he won and in a number of broadcasts together over the years. They’re a decently well-established Victor couple, though clearly not married by any means.

Riley looks up at the two of them. “Are you two…?” Riley doesn’t know how to finish that question.

Jen gives him a small, sympathetic smile. “Yeah, we are.”

“And how do you-” He swallows, trying to get his words to function like they normally do. Trying to make the world make sense like it used to. “How do you make things work?”

“Trust and communication,” Wes answers. “You have to let your partner know about what’s happening, let them know why and what you’re doing and what’s being done to you. Don’t be too explicit- that never goes well- but let them in and let them know things.”

Riley tries to picture the expressions on Shelby and Ivan’s faces when they find out what he’s had to do. He’s 95% sure that they won’t judge him- it’s far more likely that Shelby will want to take down the President, instead, and that Ivan will vow to avenge Riley’s honor. Riley smiles, just a little, at the images in his mind.

“I just need to get through this first,” Riley says, almost trying to reassure himself, “And get home to them.”

Wes nods. “It’s only a couple of weeks, Riley,” Wes says with a sympathetic smile.

Riley’s not an idiot- he can see that clearly it’s not just a couple of weeks, if Jen and Wes are still doing this to this day- but he can ignore what’s staring him in the face if it means staying sane, so instead he focuses on getting home.

He’ll be heading back to Nine some time soon- not soon enough, to be certain- but he _will_ be home, eventually. He’ll get through this. He’ll get to go home to his family and Shelby and Ivan.

He’ll get to move into the Victor’s Village and forget about the Games and the Capitol, if only for a little while.

He just has to make it through the next few weeks in the Capitol- then he’ll get to go home and kiss Shelby and Ivan and hug his mother and Matt and sleep for days and forget about life.

Yeah, that sounds nice. A few weeks to go, that’s all.

(Riley’s a logical person. He’s always known that he would be able to rationalize nearly any action, if that action was the most logical one possible. Going into the Games, he’d been able to rationalize killing children.

He’d just never thought that he’d ever have to rationalize something like this.)


	2. this whole damn city thinks it needs you (but not as much as i do)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "The Last of the Real Ones" by Fall Out Boy. Poem is from pencap's tumblr account, and is the absolute best poem I've ever read to describe how the people back home feel when they find out what their loved ones have sacrificed for them after becoming Victors in the Capitol.
> 
> Also, I know this is almost half a year late. Guess I should say I'm sorry?

_Damn the world, and damn you too._

_Damn anyone that ever asked anything of him, damn anyone that ever took anything from him, damn anyone that ever prayed to his name._

_You know that he will give them everything until there is nothing left of him but the imprint of dust where his feet once trod._

_You know that he will bear the world like Atlas until his shoulders collapse and his knees buckle and he is crushed by all he used to carry._

Riley returns home from the Capitol a month after the Games, and there’s something different about him. He’s a bit skinnier, a bit quieter, his eyes a bit darker. Even as he greets the cheering crowds at the train station, a smile on his lips, Ivan can’t help but think that something’s off. Something’s not quite right.

And Ivan can’t help but be a bit scared for him. This Riley isn't the Riley that Ivan and Shelby said goodbye to in the Justice Building, anxious and brave in equal amounts, with a stubborn faith that he would make it through shining fierce on his face.

That Riley was a bit scared, yes, but he was determined. He was going to return home, damn the statistics, damn the Careers and the Capitol and the Games. No matter what it took, Riley was going to come home to them.

This Riley- Ivan isn't sure what's off with this Riley. Ivan and Shelby had watched the Games together, determined not to miss anything between them. They’d watched as Riley had pulled off that impossibility, outwitting the Careers and becoming the Victor. In the speeches, in the Victor's Interview, Riley had seemed, well, not quite _fine_ with what had happened, but certainly not as _shifted_ as the man in front of them now. He didn't have that same hollow look in his eyes as this Riley does.

“Do you think it was the Games?” Ivan asks Shelby as Riley gives his speech. Underneath of that green suit that Capitol stylist dressed him in is the boy that they love, the boy who promised to come back to them, the boy who loved their science classes when they were still in school and loved that stray dog that lived in their corner of the workers' barracks and who smiled like the world wasn't broken.

“I don’t know,” Shelby says, “I mean, he’s not a Career, but he didn’t seem to be having too many issues during the Games or the Victory Interview. If it was from killing those kids, don’t you think that he would have cracked by now?"

Well, that's a rather blunt way to put it, but Shelby's never really been known for her subtlety.

-

They help Riley move into his house in the Victor’s Village throughout the afternoon. Much of the furniture has been delivered already, rich pieces that wouldn’t be out of place in the Mayor’s Mansion but that Ivan certainly has never seen anything life his entire life. Ivan and Shelby are moving the couple of boxes of things from Ivan and Riley’s rooms in the barracks while Ivan's mother and brother move all of their stuff into the other rooms.

Today has only made Ivan more concerned about Riley, who has spent the whole day subtly avoiding touching either of them. It takes awhile for Ivan to notice, focused more on the other aspects of Riley that worry him (the hollow edge to his face, the bags under his eyes, the clipped note to his voice). But once he does, well- there's a very, very wrong feeling that settles in his gut, a sort of dread as to why he won't come near them when, before the Games, he was the most physically affectionate among the three of them.

Everything collapses that evening, when they go to move into the bedroom. Riley stands there and stares at the bed for a long minute, definitely long enough to send worry shooting up Ivan and Shelby’s spines. Riley’s expression is almost impossibly neutral, almost as if he’s in a state of shock rather than his usual “logicing his way out of something” face, and it kind of terrifies Ivan.

“Riley,” Shelby says, finally giving into the tension that’s been piling up all day, “Clearly something went wrong in the Capitol. Just...just tell us what happened, okay?”

Riley just stares at them both for a long moment before finally moving. He takes off for the restroom, where it takes only moments for Ivan to hear the sounds of retching.

He probably ate something bad on the train. Yes, that would probably explain the dark shadows under his eyes, his strange behavior all day, the current retching noises Ivan can hear from the bathroom right now. That would explain the nausea in a way that doesn't make the dread in Ivan's stomach even worse.

Still, Shelby and Ivan follow him in, Ivan wetting a towel with the clean (and he still can't believe that this house just has clean water that doesn't have to purified) water from the sink. Shelby helps Riley sit down as he collapses backward into the wall behind him, and Ivan offers him the towel to wipe off his face, which Riley takes with a nod of gratitude.

“Shel, Iv,” Riley says, shortening their names to the nickname form that the three of them have only ever used in the privacy of a bedroom. “I’ve…” his voice stutters as it never does. Riley’s not a very commanding man, but he’s always been very sure of himself. “I’ve got something I need to tell you.”

Shelby squats down on the floor next to Riley, placing a hand on his knee. “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” she says as Ivan sits down on Riley’s other side.

“I…” And that’s when Ivan notices it: Riley can’t look either of them in eyes. He can’t face either of them. Riley, who's always had an easy confidence, who is smart and tactful and the best of the three of them at putting people at ease, can't bring his gaze to theirs. “I’m the newest Victor prostitute.”

The words don’t even process properly in Ivan’s ears at first. Prostitutes in Nine live pretty far away from the barracks for field workers, and even when he’d visited Shelby in the Merchant area they hadn’t seen very many there. There had been plenty of women and men that warmed each others’ beds in the field barracks, but the idea of sex for money was one that was almost foreign. No one ever had enough money to give it away for sex, after all.

And beyond prostitution as a concept...Riley’s never wanted to have sex, both Ivan and Shelby know that. Even as the two of them have gotten closer physically, neither of them has ever gone beyond cuddles and kisses with Riley. They’ve respected his lack of desire, and he’s certainly never asked them to stop having sex with each other, though they've always done it on nights when he's busy or elsewise occupied.

There are now tears gathering in Riley’s eyes. “When I’m in the Capitol...well, the President makes all of the Victors who aren’t otherwise serving the Capitol serve the Capitolites. In their beds. And I don’t want to betray you guys, not like this, but if I want to survive, if I don’t want those I love to be put in danger, then…” His voice trails off, and he’s still not looking at them, as if scared of their reactions. He's staring at his feet, at his shaking hands, and Ivan wants to throw up, just like Riley was just doing.

“I’m gonna fuck someone up,” Shelby swears, and Ivan knows that there is a similar anger burning inside of his chest.

But Riley shakes his head. “You can’t do anything,” he says, “No one can. Not against the President. If I don't do this, if I don't let them fuck me- then one of you two could be Reaped. Mom or Matt could die. I can't- I can't let that happen.”

"Then let them Reap us," Shelby says, "We'll make it out, just like you did-"

Riley's expression shutters. "No, they wouldn't," he says, voice low and matter-of-fact. "You would die, straight out. They would never let a punishment go unfulfilled. You would die and they would conscript me anyway, in order to keep Ivan and Matt and Mom safe."

Shelby slides down so that she’s finally sitting on the ground next to Riley rather than squatting next to him. "Riley," she says, and it sounds like her very sincerity is killing her: "Thank you."

"There's no need," Riley says, "I would make this decision a thousand times over for you two."

And that's what hurts- that Ivan knows that he would, because Ivan would do the same for the two of them, because Shelby would do the same for the two of them, because no matter how much it may hurt them there is no way that any of them would ever let the others die in the Games.

Eventually, quiet falls between them. Riley, exhausted and drained by the past few weeks, falls asleep on the floor between them, and Ivan is left staring at Shelby over top of Riley’s shoulders.

For a few moments, neither of them speak, just sitting in the bathroom with all of this new knowledge sitting heavy between them.

“I hadn’t realized that it would be this bad,” Shelby eventually says quietly, her fingers still resting on Riley’s knee, almost as if she’s gaining as much comfort from still touching him as Riley had taken comfort from her touching him while he’d still been awake. “I mean, I expected the nightmares from the killing of kids. I expected Riley to probably have a hard time with the murder of people, even if they were other tributes. But this side of things? That the Capitol might make him do something like this? I...hadn’t thought of that at all.”

Ivan thinks of Tyler, who died two years ago in the Games. He thinks about how Shelby had gone near silence in grief. She had never cried, never made a scene, but she’d barely spoken for at least a month after the Games, after Tyler’s body had returned in that wooden coffin.

Ivan knows that when Riley’s name was called, it had been Shelby’s worst nightmare come to life again. Ivan knows that Riley had to win, to survive, that Shelby would have been comfortable with him doing just about anything to make it out of the Arena, just so that there wouldn’t be another wooden coffin returning to District Nine.

But this? Riley turning over this part of himself because the Capitol wanted nothing more than to devour every part of the Victors it creates?

Ivan knows that Shelby made her peace with the murder. But she didn’t make her peace with this- she never even entertained it as a possibility. Neither of them had.

“I hadn’t thought about it, either,” Ivan says, “I hadn’t thought of even thinking about it. That it had been a possibility.”

But once Riley _had_ admitted that it was a thing, this prostituting of Victors- well, it wasn’t hard for Ivan to process it all, to put the details together.

Riley’s sense of self-preservation does not stem from a selfish place, no matter how much Ivan wishes that it did. It stems from a place that understands that if he survives, the people he loves survive.

Riley did this, became not just a Victor but also a Capitol plaything, for _them_. He did this to protect them, to get home to them, to make sure that neither of them would ever have to die in the Games like all of those tributes have so far.

“We have to be here for him,” Shelby says, back straightening.

Shelby’s hand slips from Riley’s knee and Riley, even while asleep, curls in closer to her, legs nuzzling into Shelby’s legs to somehow replace the comfort that has left him. The motion is at once comforting and chilling to Ivan- the sight of Riley cuddling with Shelby is as adorable as always, but the reason has shifted, just a little, and that underlying _why_ is what causes Ivan’s heart to skip a beat, and not in a good way.

“Yes, we do,” Ivan agrees without argument, without hesitation, and he knows that Riley didn't have a moment of hesitation when he agreed to far worse for the sake of Ivan and Shelby.

-

In the coming weeks, they start to build a home for themselves in Riley’s house in the Village. Riley’s mother Diane and brother Matt take a couple of rooms on the first floor, while Riley, Ivan, and Shelby pretty much have the entire second floor to themselves.

Most nights find Riley curled up between them, head curled into the back of someone's neck or into someone's chest. His nightmares decrease when he's in the middle, when he has both of them touching him. The dreams don't completely disappear- they never could, after everything he's survived- but they decrease a little as he's held in the arms of the two people he loves.

Their beds before now have always been uncomfortable and small, with the three of them crammed together into rooms too small for the three of them in the field barracks or Shelby’s tiny room in her father’s bakery.

It seems as if Riley specially ordered this bed for the three of them. Despite the fact that they technically have rooms of their own on this floor, Ivan and Shelby find themselves in Riley’s bed nearly every single night, helping him deal with nightmares of the Arena on bad nights and kissing and laughing on the good. They get a tv to watch the science channels of Riley and Shelby’s fascination, the baking competitions of Shelby and Ivan’s interest, and the musical shows of Riley and Ivan’s preference.

In the coming months, Riley tells Ivan and Shelby about Wes and Jen, about his lone friends in the Capitol, and lets the two of them in on some of what happened in the Capitol. He doesn't go into the details- as per Wes and Jen's advice- but he does tell them about some of the Gamemakers and Capitolites that he had to deal with. Ivan and Shelby, in turn, take care to remind Riley that what happened was not his fault, that they will be here for him no matter what, that they know he can survive anything.

All in all, the three of them find a new normal in the Victor’s Village alongside Riley’s family and Kendrix Morgan, who lives in a house down the road with her girlfriend Maya and her little sister Kendall, Ivan and Riley’s old boss down at the fields. Their lives adjust to this strange world they're living in, now, as they try to ignore coming Victory Tours and Games and all the times in which Riley will have to go back to the Capitol.

-

And then comes the Victory Tour, and Riley has to return to the Capitol and to its devouring maw, and Ivan and Shelby have to sit and pray and wait for Riley to come home, hopefully no more broken than he already is.

_You have already made so many heroes, and you can make another again._

_You can have your pick of heroes._

_So please, I beg you- he is all that I have, and you have so many heroes_ _and the world has so many more_ _._

_Let him be soft, and let him be mine._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all liked it so far- next chapter will be a bit less dark and will have Ivan and Shelby, but still plenty of angst.
> 
> Also, any Victors introduced in each fic from now on will be listed in the end notes for clarity's sake.
> 
> 52nd Games: Jen Scotts, District 1  
> 55th Games: Wes Collins, District 1  
> 56th Games: Kendrix Morgan, District 9  
> 72nd Games: Riley Griffin, District 9
> 
> Dead in the Games:  
> 70th Games: Tyler Navarro, District 9


End file.
